Mahler's Fourth Symphony
What you'll hear
Richard Strauss (1864-1949)
Metamorphosen – Study for 23 solo strings
On the night of 2 October 1943, the Munich Nationaltheater was destroyed in an Allied bombing raid. Richard Strauss, living in retirement in the Bavarian Alps, was 79 years old and had kept a careful distance from the events of his time. But now he sketched a few bars of music in C minor, “Mourning for Munich”. In March 1945 he returned to the sketch, weaving it into an anguished 25-minute movement for string ensemble, his lament for a civilisation destroyed by war.
“Metamorphosen” is a term taken from Goethe, whose writings had consoled Strauss in wartime. But another, more subtle metamorphosis was also taking place. As Strauss worked on his Munich fragment, he realised that he had based it, subconsciously, on a musical lament by another composer, and he structured the whole work around that realisation. Strauss builds huge musical paragraphs from these two ideas before the skies lighten, while scraps of Wagner, Mozart and the younger Strauss are woven into an ever richer and more agitated texture. A final climax totters into an equally final collapse, and the music of the opening returns, destined this time to lead only downwards into darkness – where a fragment of Beethoven’s Eroica symphony stands, blackened amongst the ruins.
Richard Strauss (1864-1949)
Morgen! Op. 27 No. 4
Every marriage has its own secrets. Richard Strauss and Pauline de Ahna married in September 1894 and in their own, often explosive, way, they seem to have been in love for the rest of their lives. Strauss never met another woman who fascinated him like Pauline: “very complex, a little mischievous, something of a flirt, never twice alike, every minute different to what she was the minute before”, was how he described her. As he explained to Alma Mahler, “My wife’s a bit rough sometimes – but it’s what I need, you know”.
In May 1894 he had dedicated his four songs of Op.27 to “my beloved Pauline” as a sort of engagement gift. The German-Scottish poet John Henry Mackay was a political radical, but Strauss was drawn to his poems for their high romantic ardour, and the cycle ends with the ravishing Morgen! – in which the singer comments upon, rather than states, the ravishing melody that embodies the lovers’ devotion. “Speechless we shall gaze into each other’s eyes / And the speechless silence of bliss shall fall on us”: The Strausses were anything but a quiet couple, but throughout their 55-year marriage, that shared contentment was enduring and real.
Gustav Mahler (1860-1911), arr. Klaus Simon
Symphony No. 4
Bedächtig, nicht eilen – In gemächlicher Bewegung, ohne Hast – Ruhevoll (Poco adagio) – Sehr behaglich
In the summer of 1900, on the shores of Lake Worthersee, Gustav Mahler began work on his Fourth Symphony. To its puzzled early listeners, it sounded at first as if Mahler was trying to turn himself into Mozart: the Fourth is his shortest symphony, scored without trombones or tuba. And it begins like something out of a children’s book. But those jingling bells aren’t a fairy-tale sleigh; Mahler heard them as “the bells of the Fool’s Cap”. There’s a cosmic jest under way here, and few composers knew better than Mahler how tragedy and comedy are twins – and how disaster can strike out of a summer sky.
And there’s certainly a black humour in the second movement: “Death strikes up” was how Mahler initially described this danse macabre. The peaceful (Ruhevoll) slow movement has the rapturous serenity of a late Beethoven adagio. And finally the clarinet and harp strike up with an easy lilt, and a human voice is heard – a soprano, singing what sounds like a nursery rhyme. It’s “The Heavenly Life”, a poem from Mahler’s beloved folk-anthology Des Knaben Wunderhorn. Is Mahler pulling our leg? To take this seriously, you’d have to be either very knowing, or very innocent. Mahler tells the soprano to sing it “with an expression of childlike cheerfulness, and entirely without parody”.
All programme notes by Richard Bratby.
Hilary Cronin
Winner of both First Prize and the Audience Prize at the 2021 London Handel International Singing Competition, Anglo / Irish soprano Hilary Cronin made her debut at the Halle Handel Festival in Francesca Cuzzoni: Handel’s Diva. Concert highlights have included tours of J. S. Bach B Minor Mass, Christmas Oratorio and Music of Consolation – Music by J. S. Bach, Schein and Schütz with English Baroque Soloists, St John Passion with VOCES8 and St Matthew Passion with Bournemouth Symphony Chorus and Sestina, Beethoven Choral Fantasia with the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields, Blow and Purcell with The English Concert, Fauré Requiem at Teatro La Fenice, Handel Chandos Anthems with Arcangelo, Dixit Dominus with La Nuova Musica, Messiah with English Chamber Orchestra, Irish Baroque Orchestra, London Handel Orchestra, London Mozart Players and The Sixteen and Silete venti for the London Handel Festival, Mendelssohn A Midsummer Night’s Dream with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Ode to Purcell on tour with Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, Telemann Cantatas on tour with Solomon’s Knot, Vaughan Williams Benedicite with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and her debut at St Magnus International Festival with Florilegium.
Hilary Cronin will make her debut at MusikTheater an der Wien singing the title role in a new production of Cesti’s L’Orontea at the start of the 2025 / 2026 season.
Selected by BBC Music Magazine as a Rising Star for 2022, Hilary Cronin studied at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance and was a Robinson Hearn, Trinity College London and Dame Susan Morden Scholar. Conductors with whom she has worked include Sofi Jeannin, David Bates, Harry Bicket, Kristian Bezuidenhout, Harry Christophers, Jonathan Cohen, Jonathan Cohen, Laurence Cummings, Christian Curnyn, Maxim Emelyanychev, John Eliot Gardiner, Nicholas Kraemer, Stephen Layton, Christophe Rousset, Sir András Schiff and Peter Whelan.
Royal Northern Sinfonia
Internationally renowned, calling Gateshead home.
37 musicians at the top of their game. Electrifying music, old and new. All the talent, determination, and creativity of the North East on a worldwide stage. From their home at The Glasshouse International Centre for Music, Royal Northern Sinfonia share the joy and wonder of orchestral music with thousands of people across the North of England – and beyond – every year.
From symphonies to string quartets, film soundtracks to choral masses, and original performances with awesome artists from Sheku Kanneh-Mason to Self Esteem, the orchestra’s members have got one of the most varied jobs there is. They’re always looking for fresh new sounds from up-and-coming composers, inviting local communities to share a stage, and doing everything they can to inspire and prepare the musicians of tomorrow to one day take their place.
They’re also working hard to smash the barriers that can stop brilliant people getting into classical music. They’ve teamed up with national partners to support women conductors to develop their careers, to help global majority musicians get vital experience in the orchestra world, and to celebrate disabled and non-disabled musicians breaking new ground together in inclusive ensemble RNS Moves. And they bring new musical opportunities to the region, headlining the first-ever BBC Proms weekend outside London.
Because they whole-heartedly believe orchestral music is for anyone – big cities and rural villages, tiny babies and life-long listeners, die-hard fans and curious minds – they travel far and wide to make sure there’s top-notch classical music on offer for anyone ready to say “I’ll give that a go”. You’ll find them in churches, castles, and community venues across the North, as well as leading the charge in Carlisle, Kendal, Middlesbrough, and Sunderland.
With 65 years of success to build on, they’ve signed a dynamic artistic leadership – Music Director Dinis Sousa, Artistic Partner Maria Włoszczowska, Principal Guest Conductor Nil Venditti and Associate Conductor Ellie Slorach – to lead the way into a bold, bright future.
‘Wherever the orchestra play and whoever they share a stage with, every performance is a feast for the heart and mind.’ (The Telegraph)
